


All These and Counting

by sunflowerbright



Series: Gift-Verse [4]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2013-02-07
Packaged: 2017-11-28 12:57:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/674646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowerbright/pseuds/sunflowerbright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lines are always blurry when it comes to the people we love. But the Doctor is definitely doing it wrong. Again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All These and Counting

**Author's Note:**

> Fourth in the Gift'verse

**promise**  
 _n._ **1** declaration that one will give or do a certain thing **2** indication of future results  
 _v._ **1** make (a person) a promise, esp. to do or give (a thing) **2** seem likely, produce expectation of

 

Rose remembered that someone pretty smart somewhere had at one time said that people promised according to their hopes, and performed according to their fears.

She wondered if that counted for your expectation of other people as well.

Donna was staring wide-eyed at the London-sky that the TARDIS had safely returned them back to, Emergency Programme One in full action.

“I can’t believe he did that,” she breathed.

Rose could.

 

~

 

Donna had tried the mallet. She had tried the other mallet. And the third. She had tried pressing random buttons. She had tried pulling all the levers. She had kicked the console. She had cursed at the console. She had cursed at the roof. She had walked outside and kicked the blue doors.

Nothing.

The TARDIS wasn’t responding in any way, and it was unnerving. When the Doctor manhandled the thing, he got a good lurch or a few sparks for it, but though the engine was still humming faintly, Donna didn’t get any reaction.

As if the stupid machine had given up as much as its owner had.

Well, Donna was bloody well not just going to stand here and do nothing: she’d already sent a pale Rose back to her room to call up Jack, see if he could do something. Anything.

Apparently beating the TARDIS wasn’t working, so Donna tried some sugar-talking instead. She was _damn_ good at sugar-talking too, but no dice. The TARDIS’s lights only flickered slightly, as if to say: ‘ _I appreciate the sentiment girl, but there’s nothing to do._ ’

“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me,” Donna hissed through clenched teeth and wondered when the hell her life had come to crazy aliens sending her away for her own good and her having to talk a friggin’ spaceship into doing as it was told. “Listen up girly-girl, the Doctor’s in trouble and we are going to go back and get him right now and if you do not want to help, then fine, we will find some other way and probably get _killed_ in the meantime and it will totally be your fault and you _know_ you’ve never had as good a ginger as this ginger before!”

The last bit was shouted, echoing off the walls, her loud voice booming back to her. Donna flinched and wondered if she would get kicked out by the TARDIS.

Silence stretched out for a few minutes, and then suddenly, with a roar of a hum, the engines started up again.

 

~

 

“I got hold of Jack,” Rose yelled, rushing down the corridors towards the console room where Donna was standing and looking weirdly proud of herself. “And he tried to do that thing, you know when I was back and we had to get hold of the Doctor, where had had all the emergency-lights go off, yeah? Well, he tried boosting the signal with some energy from the Rift and it was apparently enough to send the TARDIS right back to our last location. If we’re lucky it’ll only be a few minutes after we left.”

Donna’s face oddly enough fell at that. “Wait, so Jack got the girl started again?”

Rose frowned. “Yeah?” she muttered, deciding not to ask further as Donna turned her eyes towards the ceiling and started muttering something about backstabbing and dropping hot tea on the carpets. Instead she wandered over to the pilot-chair and seated herself, intently studying her shoes.

She could feel Donna’s eyes travel back down to her.

“Rose? Are you alright?”

“Yes. I’m fine.”

“He’ll be alright.”

“Yeah, of course he will.”

“We’ll come get him, and he’ll be fine. You’ll see,” the red-head moved closer to her, grinning triumphantly. “For once, we’ll be the one to rescue him, yeah?”

Rose forced a smile. “Yeah. Absolutely.”

 

~

 

Of course, it doesn’t go that easy. Or as planned at all. Not that there was an actual plan, from the Doctor or his companion’s or maybe even the TARDIS’s side, but no. Everything just went to hell.

There was the whole reason the Doctor had sent them away in the first place: the clenching, undeniable fact that the people of this planet had found burned-out scraps of Daleks and put them back together into some kind of grotesque death machines, controlled by an operator outside of the metal-framing.

The fact that the Doctor knew the man who had done it had certainly not made him more inclined to let his companions stay there. It had, however, made it firm for him that _he_ would stay.

Hence the activation of Emergency Programme One.

And then there were the resistance, the people against the use of the half-Daleks, the people currently trying to help them bust the Doctor out of jail.

They did get him out of jail. Only, of course, it didn’t go that easy.

Not the breaking out and rescuing the planet. It didn’t go _easy_ as such, things never went easy for them, but they survived, like they almost always did. Got out of there, left the people happy. Got back in their blue box.

No, it was what happened afterwards that really wasn’t according to plan.

 

 

~

 

“I want to leave,” Rose said and that was certainly not what the Doctor had been expecting. Maybe to get yelled at, like Donna had yelled at him few minutes prior. Good lord, that ginger had a set of lungs on her.

“We’re already leaving, Rose,” he quietly said. “We won’t have to step foot on that planet ever again.”

For some reason, that sentence made her look furious.

“Right,” she snapped. “Been there, done that. We’ll have to find a whole new one for you to abandon me on again!”

The Doctor looked flabbergasted.

“What?”

“You heard me!” she bit out. “I mean, what has it been now, back in my own time, in a Parallel Universe, and back in my own time again? Going to find a Parallel Universe made out of entirely shrimp to dump me in next?!”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” he said. “There is no such Universe… at least I don’t think so…” his hand flew up to scratch the back of his neck. “I mean, of course it is possible, and statistically, with all of the Parallel Universes out there, I suppose there could be one that… Rose… Rose, where are you going?”

The blonde was already storming off, passing Donna in a flurry of gold and pink. The former temp took one look at her friend and marched up to the Doctor.

“What did you do this time?!” she demanded. The Doctor sighed.

 

~

At least this time Donna didn’t have to shout at him (for very long) before he realized his mistake and quietly started making his way around the TARDIS, looking for his friend and lover.

Of course _that_ was easier said than done, as she seemed to be absolutely nowhere. Not in her room, or his, not in the snooker-room, the kitchen, the Zero Gravity chamber, the Maintenance Centre, the TV-room, the Caterpillar-room, the garden, the greenhouse, the other TV-room, the room that was shaped like a miniature version of France, complete with mini-scale Eiffel Tower and little hologram-people running around being chased by a dinosaur (that part wasn’t very accurate. At least not for most of the time).

Rose Tyler was simply nowhere.

Unless of course, he chose to check the library slash swimming-pool. Which was one of her usual haunts, and why the hell hadn’t he thought about this earlier?

He was seriously losing his touch.

The TARDIS engine, reverberating through the walls, gave a low hum as if in agreement.

“Whose side are you on anyway?” he whined, and the walls were immediately illuminated in pink light.

“Great, thanks a lot,” he muttered, giving a good kick to the nearest door and wondering if maybe this was why no-one was on his side. But he hadn’t kicked Rose!

At least not literally…

Oh damn. This girl had dated Jimmy Stone and Mickey Smith and he was _still_ the worst boyfriend there ever was.

_Boyfriend._ The word tasted odd and foreign and plain _wrong_ in his mouth.

But he’d arrived at the library slash swimming-pool and he knew without a doubt, like he knew when it was going to rain in the TARDIS’ garden, that Rose was in here.

He stepped in and loudly cleared his throat.

No response.

“Err, Rosie?”

He only barely managed to duck the book that was hurled at his head.

“Do _not_ call me Rosie!” she hissed, stepping out of her hiding-place beside one of the shelves.

“Right-right,” he muttered, holding his hands up in surrender. To be completely honest, he had been expecting tears and ensuring her that her worries where unwarranted and holding her while she cried out: an angry Rose – no, not angry, truly _furious_ , she’d never thrown books at him before – was a much trickier creature to deal with.

He briefly entertained the notion of running back to fight those almost-Daleks.

Then she threw another book at his head.

“You are a right, honest _prick_ did you know that?”

“Uhm…”

“You are,” she said, and then it was like all of the fight went out of her, as she sat down on one of the sofas, shoulders sacking and the book – ammunition for his head – that she was holding was falling to the floor from her no-longer firm grasp.

Like with any wild and unpredictable animal, the Doctor decided to go near her slowly and carefully.

“I’m sorry,” he said, seating himself down next to her. She raised her eyes from the floor only enough to glare at him.

“Shut up, Doctor.”

“Um, okay,” he shifted a little. “I’m not sure I can actually do that. It hasn’t really been tested.”

She smiled, slowly and reluctantly, but it was enough. He grinned, practically beamed back at her.

“Rose…” he began. “I know you’re upset.”

“You’re right I am.”

“And I know why…”

“The hell you don’t!”

“But I do,” he quickly said, reaching out for her hand, not wanting to admit his absolute relief when she didn’t pull back from him. “I left you – again.”

“Again again,” she said, so quietly he almost didn’t hear.

“And that… that is not alright,” he finished lamely, grasping her hand even tighter in fear that she would pull away in the face of his absolutely dreadful attempt at an apology. “That’s not… I shouldn’t have done that.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Rose said, eyes focused on their intertwined fingers. “Your apology now, it doesn’t matter. Because you would do it again.”

There was a lump in his throat. “Yes.”

“To keep me safe.”

“Yes.”

“Even though you promised you wouldn’t.”

“I…” he let out a huff of breath. “I never actually specifically…”

“Oh, shut up,” she repeated. “It was implied. You knew what I was talking about. That day you came back, after our argument, when I woke up and you were in my room, you _promised_. And you said you knew what you were getting into. You said it was okay. You said we were equal.”

“Yes,” he mumbled. “I said that. I knew what I… but honestly, Rose, I would rather have you safe and whole and angry with me, unable to trust me, maybe forever, than for you to be lying dead somewhere, or tortured or… or… sorry.” He was as surprised as her when he was the one to let go of her hand. “I am so, so sorry, but I don’t care as long as you’re alive. I don’t know if that makes me selfish or a bad person.”

“I don’t know either,” Rose said. “Going completely against my wishes… that’s just not alright, Doctor. And I don’t know if I can stay if you keep on doing that. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve worried about this? _Three times_ you’ve done it now, and at least two of the times it was for nothing more than what we’ve faced before. I get the first time, _I get it_. It still wasn’t alright, but you saw no other way. But Pete’s World? I told you I wanted to stay with you. I told you I’d give up my mum and my life for you, and you still sent me away. Did you think I was just some air-headed teenager, who didn’t even know what she wanted?”

“No, that wasn’t…”

“And then now,” she went on. “You do it again. To me _and_ to Donna. And if we hadn’t come back, who’s to say what would have happened to you?”

“Hey, I would’ve gotten out,” he mildly protested, before stopping himself. “Not the point: I’m grateful you went back.”

“Why send us away in the first place?”

“ _Because!_ ” he said, a bit too loudly and sharply, but he could feel it, like something gnawing at his chest and he knew that, on a lot of levels, he wasn’t in the right, but he just needed her to see…

“Because,” he continued. “Because there’s been… incidents. And accidents. And heroes and fools, and I don’t forget Rose. I might say I do. I might pretend. But I don’t forget. Every single face, every person who has ever been in my life for long enough to smile in that special way, long enough to jump around the console and decide where we’re going next – I remember _all of them._ And they leave me. Because they find something better. Because they forget me. Because they’ve had enough. And that’s… that’s heart-breaking, but… they’re out there. They’re well. Some of them might even think of me fondly, as I think of them. But some… some are dead. Some caused those incidents. Some were in an accident. Some had to play the hero, or was just a fool at the wrong moment.  And they’re _dead_ , Rose. Because of me.”

The silence that followed seemed to stretch out for hours on end, until finally, achingly slowly, Rose reached for his hand and held it - lightly, softly - again.

“You can’t just do it again,” she said. “I chose this life. I want this life. I know the risk – no, really, I do. And Donna does too. And you have to accept that, and stop blaming yourself. If you do, you’re still the haughty Time Lord, and no-one will want to put up with you anymore.”

He leaned forward and buried his face in her neck. “You put up with me.”

“Yep,” she said. “Donna and I. God help us both.”

“You know, it is alright just to call me ‘Doc’… _ow_! Right. Sorry.”

She smiled lightly, as he peeked up at her.

“So, we’re good?”

Her expression was still a bit morose, but not angry at all anymore. “We’re alright,” she said, and he wasn’t sure if that was an agreement or a different statement.

He clenched her hand tighter in his and decided that, whatever it was, he was willing to take it.


End file.
